A Fighting Fantasy Journey
Book One: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
The classic that started it all. I have three versions of the first book written by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. We embark on a mission into Firetop Mountain the lair of an evil Warlock and his minions in attempt to steal his treasure. I never felt Zagor the Warlock was a real villain as we are the one breaking into his home to take his treasure. He seems happy living in isolation in his mountain so why are we trying to kill him. In Titan the guide book to the world we discover he stole the treasure from the dwarfs, but who hasnt done that. Zagor popped up in the novel The Trolltooth wars where the hero has to ask for his help proving Zagor could be reasoned with so why are we trying to kill him? Because we want his treasure thats why.
The 25th anniversary edition is a great find if you can get it. It has a complete list of the book series and a history of the collection and map of the mountain.
The route through the mountain will lead us to the Warlock but on the way we need to collect the three keys to unlock his chest. We arent told this, we have to figure this out on the way. It's always a pain to get right to the end of one of these books just to find out you missed oone object that you needed to win. The worse section of the map is when you hit the maze which Steve Jackson put in and I remember tossing the book away in frustration as I came across the same gambling dwarfs about four times.
The warlock illustrated by Russ Nicholson who for me is Mr Fighting Fantasy. I love his line work which is always full of detail. The miniature is based on this picture. It's nice that the Warlock gives you time to look through your backpack to find something to help you in your fight.
For painting my mini I used the art from the board game cover for inspiration. This was the first Games Workshop game I played because as a ten year old I knew the rules from the book. It also followed the layout of the book including the annoying maze.
Nice to see someone doing a Project on the fighting fantasy book
s, its not something i would of thought of doing. Looking forward to your next instalment, and the Warlock (if i remember right) took me 17 try`s to complete it. On a side note, i do have the board game and will get a picture sorted when i have a spare minute or two.The board game was good. I must get a copy at some point
I loved these books as a child / younger man!
I am sure I told this story once before on some thread on here, but I will type it again as it’s related to this project!
A few years ago (pre Covid) I met Ian Livingston at UK Board Games EXPO, and I bored the man too tears (I suspect) gushing over the Fighting Fantasy books.
I told him how my favourite was Citadel Of Chaos, and He listened politely. It was only on the journey home I realised that Steve Jackson wrote Citadel! God Bless Ian for being so nice!
Ha that’s hilarious. At least you didn’t slag off deathtrap dungeon
Deathtrap Dungeon followed by Trial of the Champions must be my top two? ??Great project idea.
anyone remember the PS1 video game of Deathtrap Dungeon???